


In her arms

by Lezcorp (Nonbinarybiomajor)



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Pining, Some Fluff, mild homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 17:35:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9248555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nonbinarybiomajor/pseuds/Lezcorp
Summary: Based on @lenaluthordefensesquad's post "5 Times Lena Luthor Really F***ing Needed A Hug But Didn't Get One, And The One Time She Did"





	

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr @ lezcorp.tumblr.com

A four-year-old Lena stood in a barely-furnished, but massive, bedroom. The space was larger than the one she’d shared with seven other girls back at the orphanage; she didn’t think it possible that one person could ever take up so much space on their own.

In time, she’d learn that she was correct, at least in her own case. The Luthors’ house - not home, never home for Lena - was large enough to fit a family of four many times over, yet she was still taught to make herself small; her adoptive parents and brother had already expanded their breadth to fill the mansion, and she was left to carve out some small corner for herself.

For her, it was the greenhouse. The rest of the Luthors never ventured into the space. Nature didn’t agree with their lifestyle of manufactured perfection. Lena, though, thrived in the warmth of the space, surrounded by color that so contrasted the steely grey walls of the Luthor mansion. She’d spend hours learning the meanings of the flowers, how to properly care for all the different plants on the estate, what conditions made each one flourish.

At the end of each day, though, she’d return to the blank, lifeless walls of her too-large bedroom, knowing that acceptance into the Luthor family would mean giving up the only thing she’d ever come to love. Eventually, she stopped venturing out to the greenhouse entirely, its comforting warmth forever confined to her memory.

The flowers she’d planted wilted and died without her care, and when she cried that night, mother nature was no longer there to comfort her.

 

\---

 

She was just barely fifteen when Lex caught her kissing her best friend, spying from the barely-there crack between her bedroom door and its frame. He doesn’t tell - he wouldn’t, he knew that it wouldn’t turn out well for her - but his lackey friend does, and by the following Monday, everyone at their insanely-upper-class private school has heard the rumors that Lena Luthor was a misfit in yet another aspect of her life.

Lena walks through the halls that day with her head down. No one said anything to her face (and wouldn’t, unless they wanted Lex’s goons to destroy them), but she could hear the poison dripping from the whispers that followed her in the hallways, feel the glares burning through her blazer and into her skin like hot pokers.

By Tuesday, her parents knew, and by Wednesday, she was on the Luthor’s private plane on her way to her new, uppity boarding school in Ireland. From the second she set foot in the dorm building, she was reminded of those days spent alone but surrounded by people in the orphanage - and all the years since spent alone but surrounded by people with the Luthors. 

She tried to deny it, hide it, ignore it, but she could still feel her seemingly-fatal flaw as though it had taken up residence in her very bones, like it had gnawed a hole for itself and moved into the space beneath her ribcage. Lena wouldn’t, couldn’t, allow her gaze to keep lingering at the hem of the girls’ too-short uniform skirts, relish in their smiles and their eyes and their laughs; but she did, because she couldn’t help it. Though the rumors had long since been buried beneath the scandals and trysts of random celebrities, they soon made their way into the hands of her classmates, and the whispers and glares began anew.

Her few friends quickly abandoned her, wanting to stay as far from the “freak” as possible. Whenever she wasn’t in class, she would sit by herself at the bay window in the back corner of the library, where no one could see her cry.

Lena was gay, and she was alone.

 

\---

 

It took years for her to be comfortable and confident in her own skin. She had attended an Ivy League school, found a place for herself in the administration of Luthorcorp, and accepted her sexuality, all of which she now looked upon with pride.

Until Lex became a murderer.

Suddenly, the his name was cast into shadow, and hers along with it. Throughout his trial, it became increasingly evident that the name Luthor would henceforth be inherently linked to scandal, to hatred, to fear, to death.

Lena, Lex’s baby sister Lena, couldn’t even recognize him. The boy who’d been as close to family as any of the Luthors had ever been, who’d taught her what it meant to be a part of their family, who’d protected her and stood up for her all throughout her childhood - that boy, that man, was long gone. When she gazed upon her adoptive brother now, all she could see was betrayal and bloodthirst.

Lillian turned her away, with Lex, Lillian’s darling boy, having served as the only bridge between them. Lena’s “father” was dead, and the world now saw her as they saw her brother: cruel, bitter, and heartless.

It took the slamming of the judge’s gavel against the podium for her to realize that in the blink of an eye, she’d lost everyone, and possibly everything, she cared about.

When she cried herself to sleep, there was no one there to comfort her, nor was there anyone who wanted to be.

 

\---

 

Lena was broken.

She knew that lying to Supergirl had been her best bet to take down her mother, but it still broke her heart to have to actually do it, to betray the trust of one of her only two friends in National City, maybe her only two friends at all.

Between that, Lex’s vendetta against her, and finding out that Lillian had held Supergirl hostage like some kind of alien lab rat, she didn’t know how much more she could take. She was positively shattered inside, and it felt as though shards of her heart had punctured her lungs, making it near impossible to breathe.

When Kara didn’t answer her messages, didn’t show up to talk to her immediately as she had a knack for doing, Lena knew. The sweet, kindhearted reporter had always responded to her almost immediately, and it had been almost twelve hours. Only one thing could explain why Kara, beautiful wonderful Kara, would be avoiding her.

Kara Danvers and Supergirl were one and the same.

Once she’d connected the dots, she sat in her office, a far too expensive bottle of scotch now almost empty on the coffee table. Her employees had all long since gone home, so Lena wallowed in her misery alone, as always, having lost her mother and both - her only? - best friends in a single day.

She cried herself to sleep on the couch, and woke up the next morning pretending she hadn’t dreamt about sky-blue eyes and strong, steady arms.

 

\---

 

Months later, after the threat of her mother and brother’s revenge had at long last been wrangled (for the time being), things between her and Kara have finally returned to normal. 

Well, not normal, per se; they’d actually been spending more time together than before, with Kara regularly inviting her over for movie nights, or game nights, or dropping by her office with food as though she knew (of course she knew) that Lena had once again forgotten to eat between meetings and conference calls.

There’s something new, too, a different kind of atmosphere that surrounded the pair whenever they were together. It wasn’t lust, Lena could tell. Not that she wasn’t attracted to Kara; quite the opposite, actually. Who wouldn’t find themselves enraptured with a smile that outshone the sun, a laugh more lovely than birdsong, a heart bigger than the earth itself (not to mention the raw power that Lena knew lie under it all)?

But no, no, this was different. This was  _ more _ . It was goodbyes filled with unspoken maybes and just-a-bit-too-long glances at full pink lips, it was the warmth she’d felt those many years ago in the comfort of her long-forgotten greenhouse, it was shelter from a cruel world full of people with wicked tongues and bitter hearts.

And it scared Lena to death.

She wanted her. By  _ god _ did she want her. The idea of being with Kara in every possible connotation was enough to keep her up at night, enough to make her stomach flip and heart flutter whenever she saw the CatCo reporter in or out of her cape.

But she couldn’t. Putting herself out there like that with Kara would mean risking losing her  _ again _ . It would mean that she stood a chance of destroying the greatest thing that had ever happened to her.

One night, though, Kara finally decided that she’s ready to let Lena know who she really was. Lena thought she had already known - Supergirl, the Girl of Steel, National City’s favorite hero - but she was as wrong as she was right; there was so, so much more to this amazing woman than she ever thought possible, a whole side of her hidden away from the public eye in either of her lives.

Because underneath Kara Danvers and Supergirl, she found out, there was Kara Zor-El, who had visited 12 planets, who was a science phenom, who was the only one left with first-hand knowledge of her home planet.

Who had lost everything, just like Lena.

And suddenly, Lena throws caution to the wind. Her lips meet Kara’s, and it was short, it was sweet...it was unreciprocated. When she pulled back, Kara looked stunned and confused, and a breath later Lena was murmuring an apology, tears already stinging at her eyes as she crossed the floor to leave Kara’s apartment, the blonde calling after her as she left without turning back.

This time, when she cried, it was because she had finally become the cause of her own destruction.

 

\---

 

Kara was falling fast from the sky, having been knocked unconscious mid-air by a ten-foot-tall alien with what looked like boulders for fists, her powers finally blown out from the fight.

Kara was falling, and all Lena could do was scream.

She watched as Supergirl neared the ground, almost in slow motion, the collective breath of the CEO, the DEO agents, and the surrounding civilians hanging stale in the air as they watched their hero fall to her doom from six stories up.

And just as she hit the ground, Lena heard Kara say her name, felt steady hands gently nudging her awake.

“Lena, hey, shhh,” Kara cooed as Lena woke, terrified and shaking. She ran her fingers softly through Lena’s long, soft hair until her breathing steadied. “Are you okay? What happened?”

Lena’s voice shook as she spoke. “I a-almost l-lost you ag-gain. I a-almost lost e-everyth-thing again.”

The blonde’s fingertips ran soothing circles over Lena’s back, slowly coaxing the tense muscles there to relax.

“I’m right here, Lena. I’m not going anywhere.”

Glassy green eyes met sleepy blue ones in the low light of the bedroom, searching them for any sign of dishonesty and finding none.

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

Kara lay back down, softly tugging Lena into her chest, into her arms. From there, Lena could hear Kara’s heartbeat, steady and strong and very much alive. She felt warm, strong arms surround her, holding her close and protecting her from the rest of the world.

They were safe, and in Kara’s arms, Lena was home.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to leave feedback/requests :)


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